


Herosim

by AlouVero



Category: Original Work
Genre: Character Death, Character Study, Kieren, Mad Scientists, Non cannon - Freeform, One Shot, Superpowers, Violence, super powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24394345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlouVero/pseuds/AlouVero
Summary: A character study on a wanna-be villain.
Kudos: 2





	Herosim

**Author's Note:**

> So, here's a short I wrote for a creative writing class that showcase's a muse that hasn't left me alone for the past five years at least. I hope to do something more with this idea one day, but I've yet to figure out an actually engaging plot with a satisfying ending.

“Bill, how's sample 207 doing? Still steady?”  
“More or less- if you consider still no signs of life ‘steady’. Is something wrong? I thought you said he would be back within five minutes of being taken off ice.”  
“Hell if I care. The day that brat doesn’t wake up is the day I finally get to retire.”

It's as easy as holding my breath really, not setting off Bill’s monitors. He’s new, and I always like to do something special for the new people unlucky enough to have to work with me. I’ve been aware and listening for well over five minutes now, even if I’m not technically awake, keeping my heart still and my lungs empty. At least as far as Bill is aware. Some of my more seasoned ‘co-workers’ know me well enough to be watching for the minuscule shifts that give me away when I’m just playing dead.  
When I open my eyes, Bill’s back is to me. He’s engrossed in a game of solitaire on the desktop computer, which means that the good doctor must be somewhere where he wasn’t able to immediately see either of us. Perfect.

I slowly reached out, laying a pale, cold hand on his shoulder and wheezing out a horrid, raspy sound. As close to a death rattle as I could manage in the moment.   
Bill goes rigid at first. I watch the cursor slowly minimize his game of solitaire to display my vitals, or current lack thereof, instead. I couldn’t stop the ghoulish grin that crept onto my face as he slowly turned around, nor the cackle that came when he screamed and threw himself on the floor to get away from my hand.

Of course his theatrics caused Dr. Miles to come running, and with him came my assigned guard, Agent Orion. I don’t mind Orion all that much, she's known me since I was small and unlike a lot of other people here I know she actually cares. I also know that when she pins me to the table by pressing the barrel of her pistol to my forehead that she means it. There would be plenty of time for them to put me back in the freezer while I’m busy reforming my brain.  
I didn’t actually hurt the guy, nor do I really want to right now. So I stay where she wants me, sticking my tongue out at her while Dr. Miles attempts to calm down his assistant.

“You can’t keep doing this, kid. You’re getting too old for these kinds of games.”

I roll my eyes at Orion’s whisper.

“If you were me, you’d do it too.”

She doesn’t have an answer for that.

“What did he do?! Am I dying? Can you fix it?!”  
Bill is still in hysterics on the floor, the fabric of Miles' lab coat balled in his fists. Nobody answers him. Instead they all look at me, wary and unsure. In theory there's a million ways I could kill them all without even having to touch them. For Bill in particular I could have taken advantage of his predisposition to high blood pressure, hell I still could now. I bet I could wind him up in such a way that he wouldn’t die until he was well on his way home- and neither Miles nor Orion would ever know I did anything at all.

“Kieren,” it's the warning tone in Orion's voice that brings me out of my fantasies, “What did you do?”

“Nothing much really,” it's the truth, I only wanted to spook him. But I can tell by their faces that none of them believe me, “... I inverted his left kidney and gave him a sixth toe.”

Bill released Miles' coat to instead grapple for the toes of his shoes.  
“One, two, three, four, five- one, two, three, four- Oh god I can’t find it..!”  
I’m dragged to my feet by the collar of the one-size-fits-none coveralls someone was kind enough to dress me in before I woke up. Unfortunately Orion has us out of the room before I can see how Miles brings Bill back to reality.

She lets go of me once the door is shut behind us. The hall is oddly quiet and surprisingly unfamiliar to me. There are windows on this level, running endlessly along what should be a wall. I’ve lived in this building for as long as I can remember, I didn’t think it had windows.

Orion doesn’t say anything as I walk up and put my hands on the glass. There's a whole world outside that I can barely make sense of. It's all colors and noise, so many little living parts and heartbeats that I feel dizzy. There's a grid of cars below us, the shiny metallic paint glittering in the glow of these big lights on long poles. Beds of flowers too far away for me to manipulate. But from up here, with only the glass between me and the outside I can make out networks of anthills and worm labyrinths just below the soft soil, highlighted by the tiniest specks of life.

“Kier, hey, are you listening to me?”

She's suddenly kneeling at my side. I can’t tell if she's more cautious or concerned.

“Huh?”

“Do you want to go back to your room?”

I nod, and let her steer me down the hall to the elevator. The outside seems to grow louder as we stand and wait, Orion must notice given the way she awkwardly pats my shoulder.

“Here I was thinking I could try and bribe you by taking you out for a milkshake… But if you’re going to go all space cadet from just a window, I’m not putting you in my car.”

I’m not really able to do much more than just breathe until the elevator doors open to offer me sweet, steel insulated security. It doesn’t actually get quiet until we’re moving downwards, but I’m at least able to form a question.

“You were going to bribe me?”

“I didn’t think I’d have an alternative. There's a city on the east coast that wants you for a job.”

I groan and slide down the cold metal wall to plop down on the matted carpet. I hate taking jobs. I hate the sedatives and the foggy hours spent strapped to gurneys in the back of vans. 

“See, I knew you’d say that. I thought I’d change your mind with a milkshake. Though none of this really matters considering you’ve already more than proven you can’t even behave during procedures here.”

“Good. I’m not going then.”

“You’re too old to still be acting this way.”

“You already said that.” I’ve recovered enough to be able to mimic her tone.

Orion is far from amused as she stands over me. I hold her glare for as long as I can before old habits kick in and I have to turn to the floor instead.

“You,” Orion speaks slow, firm, “are 16 years old. Yet you’re still throwing the same tantrums you did when you were four.”

“I was just messing around-”

“You can’t be messing around with your abilities! You need to take responsibility!”

“But I wasn’t using my powers, all I did was touch him and he freaked out..! He’s not even hurt, just stupid!”

“Don’t you get that if you keep causing more trouble than you’re worth, they’re going to run out of reasons to keep you around?”

“So? It's not like I can die.”

“You’ll go back on ice, indefinitely. Is that what you want?”

Some days, yes. Being on ice in and of itself isn’t actually all that painful. It's no different from being in a deep, dreamless sleep. I dislike the parts leading up to it, when my body is stripped of everything they can find a use for. And the part immediately after, when I have to grow everything back amidst the haze of coming back to life. It's mostly instinct to grow things like lungs and a functional heart, I don’t have to focus as much but it isn’t exactly comfortable.

“Then someday when the power's out for more than five minutes, I’ll have a hell of a time actually giving people a reason to be afraid of me.” I don’t think the words before they’re coming out of my mouth, but that doesn’t make them any less true. 

Orion takes a step back, pinching the bridge of her nose as she clearly tries to find a better way to handle me.

“The others from your class aren’t nearly as stubborn as you. Even Margie doesn’t have a chaperone. Asher’s got a detective job-”

“Margie talks to bugs! That's it! And Ashers friggin’ psychic-! They don’t have to try and cure cancer or grow donor specific kidneys! You’re not putting them in freezers to keep them from regenerating the limbs you hack off of them!”

Orion lets my words simmer in the silence between us. I get up and shove past her when the elevator doors open.   
This hall is familiar. The fluorescent lights are as cold and harsh as the tile beneath my bare feet. I’m pulsing with the same anger at the unfairness of it all as I did the first time I stood here twelve years ago. I don’t know much about life outside, or the city, or anything that I should- but I know that I’m right and everyone else is stupid.

“I get that you’re all different, really I do.” Orion's voice is sticky-sweet, “Everyone has different challenges but, Kieren, don’t you see how much good you can do? Don’t you want to be a hero?”

I turn slowly. Staring at her and the gun on her hip. Thinking about what she's asking me to do for this world I have no reason to like. The pain I’m expected to subject myself to for strangers who scream if I so much as touch them. In the name of what exactly? Heroism? 

“I’m starting to think that I’d much rather be a villain.”

I don’t think I meant it. Not as I said it, at least. But she took it seriously. She had to, it's her job. 

I’m not invincible. At all, really. The bones I build break far easier than the ones most are born with. I still feel pain, and bullets do hurt.

She had to do it. Even with a solid half inch of metal buried in my frontal lobe I still know this is true. 

The issue has never been that I don’t want to help. I doubt there’s a kid on Earth who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be a hero. What I’ve always hated were their methods, the lack of trust, the fact that I could save so many more lives operating under my own power. 

I never wanted to be the monster they’d made me out to be.

It wasn’t my choice.

I had to do it. Don’t you see? I had to kill them. They were never going to let me go. They never actually cared, not about you, or me. It was the money. Or maybe it had something to do with the government.

Or maybe I don’t know. Maybe I lost control. Maybe even I wasn’t aware that I was capable of causing cardiac arrest through three layers of concrete. I didn’t mean to do it. You have to believe me. I don’t want to be a killer.

I don’t want to be the villain.


End file.
